Let us Burn
by DoomsdayDevices
Summary: One-Shot. A Mantis reads his toys' minds, and his own.


**Thank you to everyone who reviewed my previous work. Allow me to introduce something a little darker...**

**All criticism is greatly appreciated. **

**I do not own Metal Gear Solid, or its characters. Only in my head. **

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_**"**Let him talk..."_

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People always think of a criminal as having some sort of twisted moral, whether they're down on the bottom of the hierarchy of needs, or pushed by revenge. These are what most of the common population can comprehend, and this is for a simple reason.

Every human being is capable of this. I've seen inside the minds of so many, and what intrigues me, and I _abhor_ that it intrigues me, is that every single human being is capable of devouring their own mother if they become hungry enough. The psychology of it is beyond complex.

And I hate it. All these people, these so called normal people who deem themselves 'civilised', and then proceed to call me the 'savage'. Am I the 'savage'? Because I can kill? No, I'm the righteous one here. I know I can kill. At least I don't lie about it, and try to cover it up with a pitiful occupation and a constant facade.

People wouldn't believe what I know. Everyone thinks that there are people greater than them, or people weaker than them. I wish I could tell them they were all the same; that if you stripped them naked, shaved away their hair and lined them up for me to look at, I couldn't tell them apart.

I looked into the mind of a Priest once, as I sat, third row back in the church. Even he undressed the young schoolgirls with his eyes, as they filed in. I saw in his head what he wanted to do, what his instinct wanted. What he _would_ do, and he _could_ do it. If his need was great enough, any man could rape a child. Every person could kill even their dearest love one to satiate an incredible hunger. There is no limits to what a person will do – take something from someone, and they will go to any lengths to get it back. Another complex fault of psychology: possession.

Then of course, there are criminals like myself. Those who don't discriminate. No, I work in fair measures. I hate everyone equally. Metaphorically, there is no greater joy than to light a small match, creating a relatively small problem, and then watching it spread, until everything burns around me, and my footprints are those of fire. A burning smell follows me wherever I go. There is no time where I cannot smell it.

My head is cloudy from the destruction that I have made.

I read her mind first, and I regretted it. I tried to find my methods of control, and I sank back into a recent childhood until I found glimpses, images, a montage of scenes.

_"...I never wanted a child..." _

_"You were a restless baby" _

_"I wouldn't be so poor if it weren't for you" _

_"I half expect your father went to war to get away from this mad house..."_

And then I went deeper, and they intensified.

"_I DON'T WANT YOU!" _

_"YOU'RE A WASTE OF SPACE!! GO THROW YOURSELF IN FRONT OF A GUN, THAT'S ALL YOU'RE GOOD FOR..." _

_"HE'S DEAD BECAUSE OF YOU!!!"_

Ebbing happiness. Unwanted – so much like myself. I dug through dark depths of abuse. Saw flashing faces of her mother's countless men, and heard all of them in bed together through a paper-thin wall. Most nights this happened. Accompanied by a drunk fist across the face.

_"You're just one of god's mistakes aren't you? You don't know what to do, do you?"_

I whispered to her.

_"Let me tell you..."_

And I told her. But there was no satisfaction in doing it. I didn't know why that was.

"You've suffered so much pain," I told her, "I wish I could put you out of your misery, but I need you."

But she wasn't all miserable, because in that darkened dungeon within her, a small candle had lit. So small its glow was negligible, so delicate that the smallest gust of wind would blow it out, and yet it stayed there. Part of me wanted her to have that happiness. Part of me knew that there was no use to it.

_"All light's burn out in the end..."_

When that flame went out, there would only be darkness. It was useless to give her false hope.

But she wanted to live. She didn't want to die a painless death. She wanted strength, and power. She wanted to live and fight her misery, fight the darkness gathering in her past. That vehemence, it convinced me.

_"Very well then, little one. I'll let you die. If he can save you, then I won't deprive you of your flame."_

And I showed her the passage way ahead, and the mines along it, my head filled with conflict over whether I wished her death or life.

Then it was him.

Now HE was different. I did not hate that I was intrigued by him, far from it. I loved it. The mysterious new territory I longed to explore.

Maybe he was worse than me.

_"You live for the day, don't you, Snake?"_

He would not answer me.

He had killed more than I, but he had done so for different reasons. The fire that he had once started, long ago, with the death of his friends, and his father. How it had burned him!

I saw his home, in the land of ice, where there is nothing but cold and white. Not like the burning blood of someone dying, but like the cold white flesh of the already dead. His fire had passed, and now had rekindled. I could almost feel the blood in his veins. He was alive. He knew, and could not deny, that he was only ever alive here, in the fight.

I felt sorry for him.

Because when he kills, he goes home to a hero's welcome. And he doesn't know what to think. Isn't killing wrong? He doesn't know anymore.

All he knows is the rush. He knows that his heart beats. He knows his whole body was trained for it, and that overwhelms him. He may kid himself otherwise, but like me, he has no other purpose.

_"Snake...Are you me?"_

Silence.

_"Snake...Do you enjoy the killing?"_

_Silence._

"_Because I do..."_

All quiet. No answers.

He thought his conscience taunted him, but he refused to look back as to why that might be. I admired that.

The past does not matter, because it's already been done, therefore, cannot be changed.

The future does not matter, because we cannot know for definite what it will contain.

The present doesn't matter because, as soon as you think about it, it's the past.

_"So what does matter?"_

I knew when I read this mind, and saw the corpses, the blood on his hands.

He does not hide his crimes. He does not try to justify what he has done. He accepts he is a killer, like I accept myself as a killer.

We're the same, fighting on an ancient parallel, where I start fires and he quells them.

_"Snake...." I whisper._

"..."

_"Let us burn...."_

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And so I fell, where I knew I would fall.

I'm happy. They have made me. I can die, knowing that they live. They will end this. Of this I am sure.

What can I say?

It feels....kind of....nice...

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**Thanks for reading! **


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